I’ve had something weighing on my mind recently. Weighing exactly 2.5 kg.
Holy moly. This was one giant packet of chocolate. I bought this in anticipation of Easter. Apparently Easter is really close to Christmas. At least, thats what I surmised after seeing the shops inundated with easter eggs mere weeks after Christmas.
I’m a sucker for the chocolate marshmallow eggs, strawberry cream eggs and turkish delight eggs
However, obsessions aside, I do have to conceed that it is way too early to be eating easter eggs. Boo! So I had to come up with a way to incorporate them into a less ‘holiday’ and more ‘everyday’ food. It had to be rich, it had to be chocoaltey…
Fudge.
Perfect.
Who could resist?
Not I.
So simple, all you need is 350g dark chocolate, 397g condensed milk, 30g butter, a pinch of salt and as many easter eggs/marshmallows as you think you might need. (The original recipe calls for 150g pistachios, but thats pretty boring…)
All you need to do is melt the chocolate, condensed milk, butter and salt in a heavy based saucepan on a low heat.
Try not to eat it at this point. Try…
Stir in the chopped up marshmallows and eggs (quickly because they will start to melt)
and pour the mixture into a tin lined with baking paper (to ensure easy removal!)
Leave to set in the fridge
And did you see the fruit in the fridge? Beside the butter and tim tams?
See, I DO eat normal food. Kind sorta maybe…
Once it is all set, remove from the tin and cut into eatable squares.
Try not to eat it all at once!!
So, my lovelies, what sweet treats are you going to be eating this easter?
When I was growing up, my favourite movie was Four Weddings and a Funeral. I thought it was hilarious and loved that the first word to be uttered in the film was a profanity. Followed by a liberal scattering of profanities throughout the film. I loved the music, I loved the actors and I loved the storyline. I did think it was strange though, that Hugh Grant says midway through the film that he is pleased to be spending his first Saturday in forever NOT going to a wedding. Having never been to a wedding myself I was awed at the number of weddings he must have been to. Where were all these people getting married? How do you even know enough people to be spending all this time at weddings? Seeing as the actors were much much older than me, I figured I would never have to worry about this (at least not for many many years). Until a few years ago.
It started with a close work colleague. Then a friend of my sister. Then a friend of my boyfriend. Then cousins, friends, acquaintances were all getting married! Makes me wonder what i’ve been doing with my time…
Clearly I haven’t spent my nights and days becoming a Piping Pro…
But I did think it was time to conquer my fear of covering a whole cake in fondant! Hooray!
And what better time to do it than to celebrate the engagement of my old high school friend Viv? As I missed the dinner where she made the engagement announcement, I thought a congratulatory cake would be in order. Turns out it’s not a scary or difficult as it seems (hmm am I about to use fondant as a metaphor for marriage? I hope not). As long as you leave yourself plenty of time and resign yourself to making quite a few mistakes, the road to a pretty fondant covered cake is relatively smooth sailing (well I didn’t say I wouldn’t mix my metaphors).
First you have to put on your funky apron
Yes, I bake in my pjamas…
Then you must bake a cake. Any kind of cake really. It should be relatively sturdy though so probably not a sponge. I baked a vanilla cake from this Magnolia Bakery recipe and I only baked a tiny one because if it was a screw up, at least it wouldn’t be a huge screw up!
A layer of buttercream goes between the cake and the fondant (you can use ganache if you like). I used the Magnolia Bakery buttercream recipe but I substituted the vanilla essence for musk flavouring. Far out… musk buttercream is one tasty icing!
After colouring and kneading your fondant, roll it out and drape it over your cake making sure you smooth it over the top and down the sides. Press firmly to make sure the fondant sticks
Trim off the excess (more neatly than I did!)
And decorate however you like. I attached a strip of white fondant around the base of the cake then folded two loops and joined them in the middle with a third piece of fondant to make a bow.
Now, I wish I had stopped there. But no, I was on a roll and figured I would try my hand at a little piped message on top of the cake. However, with my short memory I forgot how bad I am at piping. So the end result looked a little something like this…
I now realise that tiny cake + large piping tip x enormous word = disaster
While it was not bad for a first attempt, I will endeavour to do better! And it did celebrate the occasion nicely.
So a huge congratulations to my beautiful friends Viv and Louis, I promise to make you a prettier cake in the future!!
She says hello. I first saw her before Christmas 2009 in David Jones and foolishly thought I would come back and purchase her another day. A few days later all the reindeer were gone!! I couldn’t believe my luck when I visited the shop again in November last year and found a little herd of well dressed reindeer waiting to take up residence on my dining room table. Even though it is well and truly past christmas, I can’t bring myself to put her away in a dark cupboard for the next 11 months. Poor thing 🙁 So, in an attempt to extend the season, here are a few things that made me happy this Christmas.
Chocolate Christmas Crackers
I bought these Jessica Walker Chocolate Christmas Crackers from David Jones a few days before Christmas. Although they don’t make a “bang” they are filled with delicious milk chocolate balls. The chocolate is in the same style as the Lindt balls (of which i’m not a fan) but taste infinitely nicer. Plus, it was fun to yell out “bang” (despite them being ‘crackers’) when pulling them.
Gingerbread
Who doesn’t love gingerbread? Well… the mothership for a start. Ginger causes her to malfunction so although she loves the way my gingerbread makes the house smell, she does not like to eat it. Every year I make a gingerbread house but this year was all about trying new recipes so I made some simple gingerbread biscuits decorated with royal icing and my awesome piping skills /end sarcasm.
Some christmas trees, stars and love hearts. Three fantastic things that all come together at christmas!
And then there are presents….
I received quite a few presents this year that are very relevant to this blog (and quite a few that are not but I might just post about anyway due to their extreme awesomeness). First up was an incredibly thoughtful package from my sister containing…
A Wilton icing turn table – a bit like a lazy susan that you can use to spin your cake around while you’re icing it. Here I was thinking I was just particularly unco when icing cakes but I spied Buddy using something similar on Cake Boss which seemed to make things much, much easier. Here’s hoping!
Several silicone sugar art moulds – in the shape of a bow, reindeer, flowers, hearts, happy/sad drama faces and a high heel shoe! Can’t wait to try these out!
And even though in my excitement I didn’t take a picture of these, I also got several bottles of artificial flavourings including Musk Flavour, Raspberry Flavour, Rose Flavour, Orange Flavour and Lemon Flavour. Oh the possibilities!!
From the beautiful Mr and Mrs S…
Amongst other things
A set of Palette knives, one little and one big one. But both are very useful for the icing of cupcakes and big cakes
A set of modelling tools (bottom right hand corner) for intricate detailing
A silicone mould for many different types of leaves (which goes very well with the flower moulds from sis. Serendipity!)
A Wilton decorating triangle, which you can’t see properly in the picture but is a plastic triangle with different indents on each side to make patterns in soft icing
Some super cute cookie cutters in shapes every girl needs – shoes, dresses, lips etc
A set to make Jam filled cookies!
And a few silicone baking sheets which will be less wasteful than covering the trays with baking paper each time I make cookies.
Far out, my baking drawer is very well stocked now!! I also got some gorgeous gifts from my super thoughtful boyfriend. Prepare to be very jealous of my…
Personalised apron! How cute is this! Argh it makes me melt a little inside each time I put this baby on I love it so much! And in case you cant see the part that is personalised, here is a close up
Bam! Cuteness!
And have you met Jessica?
She’s my other christmas present from the ever thoughtful boyfriend. I’ve always wanted to start a collection of Royal Doulton ladies because im such a sucker for their pretty dresses and elegant poses
and the shoes! Did I mention the shoes? So dainty!
Little Jessica here goes with the Holyrood pattern from the Royal Albert 100 years collection. The Holyrood was the first tea set my mum bought me out of this collection and she gave it to me as a graduation present back in ’07. Its lovely to start my lady collection with the same pattern. Now I need to work on finding a beautiful (and safe!) place to display her.
So that was my Christmas (minus a few recipe posts I am still to write up) and it sure was a great one. I may even have to go out on a limb and say best christmas yet! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas!
We all know that a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down, so why not gift some novelty sugar cubes that are quick and easy to make, not to mention being unbelievable cute!
All you will need is 125g caster sugar, 1tbsp water, some food colouring, baking paper and some small cookie cutters.
Add the water to the sugar and mix so that it resembles coarse sand.
Divide sugar among different bowls then add food colouring and mix
Place the sugar between two sheets of baking paper and press to a depth of around 1cm.
Using your cookie cutters, stamp out shapes. I used a pallet knife to transfer each sugar cube to a fresh sheet of baking paper, be careful as they are quite fragile while they are wet. Repeat with different colours and shapes.
Leave to dry overnight
And package them into pretty boxes or cellophane bags. Easy!
So, starting the year off on a cute and sugary note, I hope to continue my cooking throughout 2011. 2010 saw me go through several jobs, highs and lows and a few near misses in the kitchen (*cough*stupid pears*cough*). With a stable, 1 year contract looming I hope to make 2011 a successful one in the career department (as well as all other departments!) but don’t want to let my cooking fall by the wayside.
I began this blog when unemployed for a few long months, in an attempt to stave off the inevitable boredom and depression that comes with continuous rejection letters. While I no longer rely on this blog to fill the empty hours and minutes I spent waiting for the phone to ring, I have found this culinary journey so enjoyable that I hope to continue blogging throughout 2011. In order to do so, I have made a few cooking resolutions to keep me on track. I haven’t had much success at keeping new years resolutions so hopefully I have come up with a few goals that I can achieve this year! What do you think? Achievable?
2011 Resolutions
1. Learn how to bake delicious, fluffy bread from scratch, without a bread maker
2. Learn how to cover whole cakes in fondant (inspired by the lovely KayB)
3. Finally crack the elusive macaron
4. Take consistently better pictures!
Hopefully by keeping the list small, I will not fail this year! So, my lovelies, what are your resolutions? Have you ever been able to keep them?
I’m a sucker for the chocolate marshmallow eggs, strawberry cream eggs and turkish delight eggs
Who could resist?
Try not to eat it at this point. Try…
and pour the mixture into a tin lined with baking paper (to ensure easy removal!)
Once it is all set, remove from the tin and cut into eatable squares.
